Hey everyone, so this is my first post. i’ve written my ideas in essay form because other people are likely to read it and i don’t like changing the introduction around. hope you enjoy and try at answering my questions. although i think the likely hood is that you will disagree with at least something. but, anyway reply and tell me what you think.
In this essay I will explain the ramifications that a socio-biology perspective of human behaviour has on politics and in particular classical libertarian thought. I’ve focused on explaining general, well established concepts rather than specific arguable ones. I will first briefly cover socio-biology and show how important it really is to understanding why humans behave the way they do. Then I will show that the sociobiological understanding of human behaviour can explain where much of the inspiration for liberty, and thus classical libertarian thought comes from and try to give insight as to whether this classical libertarian idea can ever be properly achieved.
Socio-biology’s main tenant as I understand is that the genes are the ultimate source of behaviour of all living things, and of course this includes humans too. These genes are under the influence of the pressures of natural selection and so it follows that genes that affect behaviour and increase the survivability of an individual are likely to become more prevalent as time goes on; reality confirms this on the whole. An obvious example of this in action is the common urge for most people, to protect their family. This is because our family represents our genes and if altruistic behaviour can protect them, even including such that the individual risks their life in doing so, this can sometimes be the fittest behaviour and best chance for a gene’s survivability. Obviously there are many examples I can give and from a socio-biological perspective, even giving up food is considered ‘risk’ for the individual as it represents a slightly lower chance of surviving, but in short this is the basis of altruistic behaviour. Also, since it takes a long time for changes in the environment to take effect on our gene pool this tells us that our behaviours, tendencies and instincts are best suited for pre-civilisation times. Contrary to popular belief, we have not evolved beyond nomad tribes and we are generally, physically the same. It would take far longer than even 40,000 years for any significant changes to occur in the human gene pool.
It should be noted there is a debate within sociobiology over the idea that we are ‘genetically determined’ to behave in certain ways, however this is really just the determinism/free-will debate with a different face on it, and I am of the perspective that free-will is completely compatible with socio-biology and indeed determinism, no matter how determined our ‘place’ in the universe turns out to be. Genes can only increase the likelihood of certain behaviours over others, they don’t necessarily dictate them.
Understanding that evolutionary pressures on which genes are the origin of behaviour is very important, especially as i try to approach the basis of why law exists in a society. But before i do so, i have to explain why the phenomenon of large groups overtaking smaller ones has occurred so quickly in in history, relative to evolution. The most commonly accepted reason for this is that the beginning of cultivation and agriculture allowed for a much larger population and more spare time for the individual. It also allowed for settlements to form since people did not have to move around when food became scare in their current location. Now this obviously had an immediate effect on behaviour, but not necessarily on the individual’s genes due to the relative short time span.
One of the biggest change would surely have to be the transformation of religion as it went from ensuring cohesiveness and identity in a ‘band’ of individuals, which ensured survival, to these qualities being passed on to civilisations. There is evidence that the role of religion in society generally became more important and prominent the bigger a civilisation became to ensure cohesiveness, and that this was a conscious effort of the leaders of these civilizations. Of course, there were many steps between bands of nomadic people and civilisations, but I would like to keep things simple for the moment. The points I really wish to emphasise are that: the basis for our existing tendencies of human behaviour are best explained through understanding the evolutionary pressures shaping our behavioural genes in the past and that recent human history has likely had little effect on our genes pool since evolution occurs on a much longer time scale.
So how does this even relate to classical libertarians? Well as you know, the law is a fundamental part of libertarian theory and without it we’d be preaching anarchy! So if we look at why the law exist, surely enough socio-biology has an answer that does away with just explaining what law is and instead explains why law exists. But now here is where things get tricky. I only want to explain my understanding of why this anomaly of law came about universally in human society, and from an evolutionary perspective. I am not dealing with my own opinion of what is right or wrong and so it is good to remember to keep in mind that socio-biology only tries to see where it would be ‘fit’ for behaviours to exist, then sets out to prove them based on observed behaviour.
Why, then, does law exist? Well, the reason why it exists at all is, in short because groups that worked together in the past had more chance of surviving. This was achieved by the group using collective force to punish the individuals that didn’t behave in a way that benefited the group as whole and so only genes that supported this mentality arose. It’s also important to note that an individual doesn’t need to be related to everyone in a group for altruistic genes to exist since his/her fate is usually tied to the survivability of that group anyway, and a genes survival is tied primarily to the individual. So we can see that people with an inbuilt sense of right and wrong had more chance of surviving, due to the increased survivability of the group that individual was a part of. And since we still have this sense of right and wrong, it manifests today as law in modern day society. Essentially socio-biology does away with the argument of nurture over nature. However it in no way tries to understate nurtures role in the reason for the development of the sense of right and wrong among people. What should really jump out to libertarians is that ‘force’ is an essential part of society in maintaining law itself, and was so in the past for as long as humans lived in groups. Often a law’s origin was attributed to god or human nature and sociologists could only ever ‘speculate’ at the origin of law, but socio-biology provides a clear reason why law is, and not just what law is.
So relative to any event to have occurred during earth’s entire history, the changes in human society in last 6,000 years would clearly stand out as the most iconic if ever an impartial judgement could be made. However, humans do not live in synch with their genes as fundamental changes have easily outpaced them. Today, it is hardly said they we live in harmony with the environment, with each other, and even with our own newly acquired knowledge of the origins of life itself; our consciousness can only try to adapt to these changes. And there is no sign of slowing down as the speed at which society is changing, and its scope of control, is increasing exponentially.
Of the many problems facing human civilization, a main one would have to be the governing of society and the place for liberty and law in this day and age. There clearly is a need for control of individual and group action, but at the same time this power to control can be used for evil as well as good as eloquent writers like Fredrick Bastiat or Adam Smith show. And just as an individual’s consciousness which has been ‘shaped’ by nurture and our genes, which over the longer run has been shaped by our environment, strives to decide what is best for itself. So too can we try to decide what is best for the group we belong to also. However, if we can judge on which group an individual belongs to based on how much our genes survival depends upon said group, the largest group of all being human civilisation must take precedence over all others.
What I wish to show you is that for the first time we as an animal species has control of the forces that shape our genes, and ultimately our behaviour and our values we place on liberty, security, family etc. creating a circular process of influence. So I think there arises three equally important questions:
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What is the best way for human civilisation to survive?
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What is the most desirable state of the individuals that form the world civilisation?
3)What will the effects of choosing an answer for these first two questions have on the evolution of the human gene pool in the long run; keeping in mind our genes are the ultimate source of influence that leads us to the choose answers for the first two questions in the first place?
For the most part people have tried to answer the first two questions, but have failed to even realise the third question which is easily overlooked. It also might lead some (including myself) to wonder if the two main solutions are to somehow halt the evolution of genes, or try to curb societies way of living to allow for desirable qualities/genes to naturally survive over others. There is also the possibility that, as I alluded to before, the naturally most survivable genes could very well be one’s that are vastly different to what we consider desirable, including our natural urge for liberty.
by Ricky Ratcliffe.